Introducing The World's First Networked Urinal Gaming System

We’ve all heard of toilet games. These are the games that prove indispensable when ‘in the can’, satiating our gaming appetite amidst the tedium of going to the loo - short and sweet, instantly playable interactive experiences that use the most basic control methods (preferably one-handed) but have an addictive/rewarding presence about them.

What we’re less familiar with is the concept of ‘hands-free’ urinal gaming. Developed by British company Captive-Media as a solution to a modern-day problem (finding a way to make product advertisement engaging in a world of skippable TV ads), the Captive Media system is the “the world's first interactive, networked washroom gaming system” that allows users to play an interactive game with nothing but their own urine as a control method. So far only installed in Balham, South London's 'The Exhibit' bar, the system consists of high-definition screens located at eye-level above the urinals, using infra-red technology and “sophisticated algorithms” to detect when the player is ready to 'play' and, more importantly, where the urine stream is hitting the bowl for a rudimentary 'Start', 'Left' and 'Right' input method. When not in use, the screens display a mixture of advertisements.

High scores are consequentially earned, posted to the bathroom's networked high-score leaderboard and the banter about who is the 'Best Pee'er' begins. It certainly gives new meaning to the phrase, “I just pissed all over your high score!”

Start-Up Green Throttle Set To Bring Mobile Gaming To The Big Screen

It seems a week doesn’t go by without another doomer-and-gloomer reporting facts and figures that try to infer console gaming is dying a slow death. There’s no denying the popularity of touch-screen gaming and the like has exploded in recent years, while services like OnLive remove our reliance on consoles in favour of cloud computing. Start-up Green Throttle Games, meanwhile, hopes a console-less future will come in another form: namely, our smartphones and tablets.

'Snake The Planet': Taking Classic 8-Bit Gaming To The Side Of Buildings

It's likely you're all familiar with the simple, classic, yet oh-so-addictive game 'Snake' by now. First introduced to arcades in the late 1970s, it was when mobile phone manufacturer Nokia began pre-loading the game onto its old monochrome-display phones when it exploded into the public consciousness, where it has remained ever since. Now, a team of media artists and computational designers – known by the name Mobile Projection Unit (you'll see why) – are taking the classic game one step further, and in a very big way – the side of buildings big.

Move Over OnLive & Gaikai. A New Cloud-Based Gaming Provider Emerges.

Betamax versus VHS, VideoCD (VCD) versus DVD, HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray – the noted format wars of old have all arisen through a combination of technological and sociological factors. The ‘Videotape Wars’ of the 70’s was driven by companies’ hopes to find a standardised media format for recording TV. The dawn of the digital video era was contested between the cost-effective VCD and the superior quality of the DVD, while the transition to high-definition played host to the one of the fiercest format wars in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray’s tussle for supremacy. Now, we think we’ve found the cloud-gaming equivalent.

Sega's return to the console business: urinal gaming makes a splash

The Dreamcast was awesome, and we were sad to see it disappear in the face of Sony's PS2. At this point, we thought that Sega was officially out of the business of making consoles: the flame had been extinguished...but no more. Introducing the "Toylet."

Remember the urinal gaming concept we found before? Turns out the guys at Sega fell in love with the concept, and created their own console to enter this clear market, full to the brim with credibility. Instructions are simple: pee to play the game.